Tag: Spotify

Already the place where users went to listen to music, it was easy enough for platforms to become the discovery platform of choice for their users. Spotify’s Discover Weekly hit 5 billion listens just 10 months after launching. With just about 100 million users, that’s about 50 new songs discovered via Discover Weekly per Spotify user.

Now labels have effectively become data companies, looking to the streaming platforms to find the new hot artists. Instead of sending A&R teams out to discover new acts, they monitor things like listens, adds, and skips across platforms to see which artists are worth signing.

Apple Music and Spotify have added unofficial mixes, thanks to deals cut several months ago with Dubset. An unofficial DJ Jazzy Jeff remix of Anderson. Paak was the first unofficial mix spotted by fans.

Dubset’s technology identifies each song within an uploaded mix or remix and attaches it to the right publishers and labels so everyone gets paid. Thus far neither Spotify or Apple Music have commented officially.

For years, there was bound to be a moment of large scale consolidation in the music streaming space. This has a lot to do with the way streaming is licensed, resulting in services with very similar product offerings and price points.

This year we’ve seen intensified competition between streaming services through music exclusives and discounting, resulting in Universal Music Group’s CEO reportedly restricting the practice. 2016 may go down as the year that will be known as the end of the beginning for music streaming.

Streaming music services collectively crossed the 100 million-mark this month, with Spotify, Sirius XM Radio, and Apple Music driving more than 85% of the total. Just recently, Spotify executive Troy Carter revealed that Spotify had crossed 39 million paying subscribers, a figure that more than doubles Apple Music’s estimated 17 million.

Officially, Apple last disclosed 15 million paying subscribers, though at a rate of 1 million new subscribers per month, their current estimate lands at 17 million (and probably, more).

On-demand streaming services Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, Rhapsody, and others collectively paid nearly $1.6 million in guaranteed payments a day to just three major recording labels last quarter. Total ‘minimum guarantees’ topped $144 million over the 91 day period, a figure that likely doesn’t include preferred advertising inventory and other juicy perks.

Benefiting from the guaranteed payments are Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group, a trio now wielding massive power over the fate of companies like Spotify.

As Spotify AB gears up for a potential initial public offering next year, the music-streaming service is missing one key component in its pitch to investors: rights to play the music in years to come, according to people familiar with the matter.

Spotify is now operating on short-term extensions of its old contracts with all three major record companies, having been on a month-to-month basis with at least one of the labels for nearly a year. It is negotiating new deals that would make its finances more attractive to investors.

“We didn’t just want to make a static playlist – Kobalt has the technology to create something special that changes and adapts with David Gray as an artist,” he said. “We have noticed that the tracks that are most popular for [David Gray] change over time on Spotify, and a lot of that is driven by playlists.